Mexico Part 53: Visitors Take II

May was full of family!  Last minute my parents decided that they wanted to come and see us one last time before we left Guadalajara so they came on the 23rd and stayed for 10 days.  It was great to have them here and do a do-over from the first time they came.  I was a little more cautious this time of where we went out to eat, and we all managed to stay nice and healthy this visit.  One of the other main reasons my mom was coming was to visit her older brother in Matehuala who had been sick.  So, my parents, the kids and I piled in the car and went to visit my mom's side of the family.  River knew we were leaving and wouldn't get out of the car when it was time to go, so she came along for the ride too.  Matthew was doing a Carrera Brutal, kind of like a ragner with crazy obstacle courses in Queretaro, Mexico, so he didn't drive down with us on Friday.  Instead, he joined us Saturday night.  We stayed from Friday to Monday and made a pit stop in San Juan de los Lagos outside of Jalisco.  Then a couple days later three of my aunts and uncles from my dad's side came to visit and we had a full house!  It was crazy but fun.  They are the nicest people and have the greatest kids.  We even threw an early birthday party for Eva since we won't be going to Oregon this summer.  It was nice to be able to have family and great friends there too.  While the family was in town, we went to downtown Zapopan, Chapala, Tequila (twice) and also Tlaqupaque all inside Jalisco.  We drove around the city in two jam packed cars with no seat belts and weathered the intense Mexican sun.  It has been HOT!  Get ready for picture overload...

San Juan de los Lagos

Tequila

More pictures to follow...

Mexico Part 52: Elijah's Fourth Birthday

My sweet kid Elijah turned four on May 2nd.  I can't even believe it.  He has grown up so much!

He had a family birthday on his actual day and a friend party the next day.  I wanted to make him what he wanted for dinner on his actual day and he said he wanted cake.  So knowing him pretty well, we made him french toast, eggs and watermelon.  Three of his favorite things.  His friend birthday was with our good friends that live here in our neighborhood.  Nothing too complicated.  I got WAY too much food, and the kids had fun.  What else is new?

Elijah, 

You have made such growth this past year.  Your language has thankfully picked up to the point where I can say you communicate.  Whew!  You understand English and Spanish beautifully but choose to speak English or at times a combination of the two.  You have a pretty pronounced lisp that is endearing.  You go to preschool twice a week and playgroup the other two days.  You are learning to interact with your buddies and defend yourself as well.  You are as kind as can be and wouldn't hurt a fly.

You LOVE sugar.  I wish you didn't but you have quite the sweet tooth.  Cookies, cake, candies, chocolate, you name it, you love it.  But when it comes to real food you can be a picky eater at times.  You don't seem to like soups and stews and tend to enjoy the drier American food.  Breakfast is always your best meal of the day.

You have an amazing imagination.  You can play for hours by yourself and I always love to buy you toys because I know you will enjoy them and actually use them.  You are a builder.  You love blocks and legos.  You can construct cars, robots, rockets, airplanes, with little to no effort.  You also love super heroes.  

You are learning slowly to hold a pencil and trace over letters.  You can't seem to decide which hand you write/color with.  You are actually equally good in both.  You can make stick people with a flat smile.  And are learning to have the control to stay within lines.  You are really good at using scissors too.  However, your perfectionism gets in the way of you executing your ideas sometimes.  

You love t.v.  We have to limit you because you get lost in it.  Some of your favorites are the "lego movie," Maker, maker, (Mr. Maker) and benius an berb (Phineas and Ferb).  But you also like to listen to stories as well.

We love you so much!  You are pretty easy going and it makes having you a joy. 

Mexico Part 51: Visitors

It's been two years since we've had anybody from the States visit us, and after Spring Break, we had Cathryn and John, Matthew's sister and her hubby with baby, come and visit us.  We were SO lucky to get to host them.  Although, I am not going to lie, I now sympathize with our families every time we crash their homes for weeks!  They only came for a week and by the end I was pretty tired.  It isn't easy to keep your routine (Eva and Matthew still had school) and be in the sun all day touring this place.  Plus, it didn't help that somewhere in there we all managed to get sick, which was a major bummer, but we still had a BLAST.  We tried to hit up all the places that we love here.  We started right off the bat from the airport straight to Chapala.  It is a beautiful drive.  When we went back into the city we stopped at our favorite taco place and had tacos al pastor.  Best ever!  Then the following day, we overwhelmed them with a get together with all of our friends here.  We even had the missionaries over!  Monday I took them out to the old tianguis I used to go to for some tlacoyos.  I think Cathryn at first was a little confused that we were going to have a heavier meal for breakfast, but that's how they do it here.  We went to my favorite Oaxacan place to eat on Tuesday, is it just me, but my idea of visiting a place is getting to eat all the yummy food?  Somewhere along the way, something made us sick.  Whoops!  Matthew took them to the Gauchimontones on Wednesday, and Thursday we headed to Manzanillo for some beach time.  Matthew and Eva played hookie on Friday.  I am getting the hang of the beach here and have the desire to go every weekend.  No joke!  It was a great drive and the kids were awesome.  It's getting easier to travel with such older kids.  If I can get Cathryn to send them to me, I will add some awesome pictures of things we saw while driving to all of these places.

Having people visit where I live makes me realize how much I LOVE Mexico.  Three years ago when we talked about moving here I couldn't fathom it.  I probably thought what all of you think, Mexico means drug lords, murders, abductions...you get my drift.  But I was so wrong.  This place is wonderful.  And I seriously mean it.  My day to day life is the best and I can't believe I get to call this place home.

Mexico Part 50: Easter

I am sure I have mentioned this time and time again, but out of the United States and living in another country, our friends have become our family.  We have pretty much claimed the park near our homes and camp out with our own tables and chairs to put on quite the production.  Sometimes, the Sunday doesn't feel too Sabbathy with all the work we have to do.  But it is always worth it.  We are too poor to pay for the covered area with the neighborhood's tables and chairs so we just bring our own.  And, since we are the house closest to the park, our home often becomes the public restroom too.  We now have our act down pretty well, and this Easter didn't disappoint.  We had two hams, green bean casserole, funeral potatoes, yams, all the good stuff our mom's would do for us, but now that we are older we do for ourselves   It's pretty great.  We also included an Easter egg hunt, water balloon fight, and an egg toss.  I am grateful to know that we can be a family wherever in the world that we are.  And this Easter I am grateful to know that because of my Savior, I have the blessing to be with my sweet family forever.  Happy Easter!

Mexico Part 49: Spring Break Sayulita

About four hours away from Gaudalajara, heading towards Puerto Vallarta, there is a beach called Sayulita.  For my Oregonian friends, the town is smaller than Seaside, and slighter bigger than Cannon Beach, but it has a very hippy feel to it.  In fact, right above where we stayed, we smelled weed every once in a while.  We went with some good friends that we have made here and had such a good time.  The house had some corky things about it, like an open kitchen/living room area where you almost felt like you were camping, but for the price and the fact that we had a pool, we wouldn't have done it any other way.  We spent our days there eating, playing in the pool, playing at the beach, eating some more, pool time again, followed by bath time and then bed.  We literally were in the water all day for the entire week.  Kids were in heaven and I loved it.  The water was warm, the waves were friendly, and the sand glittered in gold ...I don't know if it gets any better.  Matthew was able to get the kids on a boogie board and learn how to do it.  They would go far into the ocean and jump waves, and Eva's swimming really took off here.  She's a good little swimmer, pretty much self taught with some pointers every now and then from her dad.

Everything was going perfect and then slowly, we all starting dropping like flies, getting sick.  By Friday Matthew and I were both sick.  I laid in bed all day long and just slept while Matthew was awesome enough to push through and take care of the kids.  It was crazy.  Eva was the only one who was spared out of both of our families.  That was pretty amazing if you ask me.  Even though our trip didn't end exactly the way I wanted it to, we made some great memories.  We are all hoping that we will be able to go back in the near future.  We left deciding that we needed to own a beach house at Sayulita one day.  And hopefully one day we will.

Mexico Part 48: March Madness Continued

Scarlet Fever.  The picture doesn't even do it justice but you can see some of the rash on her cheek.

Should would love to see more of this around my home, but she often gets "tired" after reading a page.  This night she last awhile. 

Why is it that boys have to wrestle?  This is a nightly routine around our home.

Costumes stress me out.  But, this one managed to come together.  A friend hooked me up by going to downtown GDL and getting the beard.  The hat was actually made from a Halloween basket, and I made her shirt.  I was pretty proud of my sleeves   For whatever reason, sleeves intimate me!

The three little leprechauns

I really didn't mean for March to only be about me.  I'm not that egocentric ;)  So, where to begin?  We started March with Scarlet fever!  Around Valentine's day Eva's friend's dad told me that his daughter was out sick with the illness.  I didn't think anything of it, but then two weeks later when I say a crazy rash over Eva's body, we eventually put two and two together.  It was of course, after pouring over the internet looking at crazy rashes, panicking to Matthew telling him I thought it was chicken pox, small pox, measles  shingles...let's just say, the internet can sometimes drive someone crazy.  We eventually recovered with no one else getting the fever.

We had some fun celebrations at Eva's school.  She had a St. Patrick's day song at school where they had to get dressed up and an earth day parade.  Eva and Elijah both had a talent show at church where they danced to a chicken song.  Elijah was convinced he wasn't going to dance just wear his costume, but when it was time to perform, he was front and center, waving his arms and yelling, "pio.pio." like the best of them.  They were adorable!  Oh, and of course, Matthew!  He had a Young Men's presentation where they put on their own rendition of the three little kids where the wolf was a pair of boys being missionaries, handing out Books of Mormon.  It was pretty creative.  And the boys were convinced that Matthew had to be the mother and wear a dress and wig.  He was a good sport.

Our two week Spring break happened around this time too but I will leave that for the next post.